Milburn Smith

Who was Milburn Smith?

Milburn A. “Catfish” Smith was a famous football and basketball coach in the state of Texas.

“Catfish” Smith began his coaching career in rural West Texas, where in 1936 he led Carey High, a school with less than one hundred enrollment and no basketball court, to a fourth place finish in the Texas Schoolboy state basketball tournament, including a twenty-six-game winning streak. He followed that with a 50-2 season and the state championship, back when the smallest schools competed against the largest for the coveted title.

In 1943 he was called to Mount Vernon, Texas to temporarily fill a coaching vacancy. Seven years later, with two hundred fourteen victories and over twenty titles, including district, bi-district, regional, and state crowns, he was one of the most recognized high school coaches in the state of Texas. His football teams won four regional titles, a state finalist, a state championship, and ten district crowns in seven years with a record of 60-5-1. In 1948 he became the only Texas high school coach to ever go undefeated in football and basketball in the same academic year, as Mt. Vernon won the 1-A state basketball championship at 30-0 and won the regional in football at 11-0.